1. Field
This application relates generally to digital data compression and, more specifically, to computer systems and processes for compressing data representing computer animated hair.
2. Related Art
Improvements in computer generated imagery (CGI) have enabled computer animated films to portray very fine animation detail, giving animated characters a remarkable realism. Clothing, hair, facial expressions, scene backgrounds, and the like are becoming increasingly complex, leading to animated films with visually stunning effects. The added complexity and remarkable level of detail, however, may come at the cost of managing dramatically larger amounts of digital data. Although the cost of storing digital data has decreased over the years, additional complexity and detail in each frame of an animated film may result in such large amounts of data that long-term storage of full hair geometry data, for example, may be untenable, leaving film studios to store only the initial data needed to generate hair geometry or digitally captured film sequences. Because the size of processed hair geometry data can make storing it impractical, artists, animators, riggers, and the like working with an animated character or scene may frequently have to re-process or re-render characters or scenes during film production. In many cases, artist time and computation time lost to re-processing scene data can be very costly.
Of the various animated scene elements that give animated films enhanced realism, finely detailed hair, fur, grass, and the like can have a particularly significant impact on viewers. However, the processed versions of these fine details can occupy such a large amount of data storage that the data is discarded soon after it is used to animate a frame, to capture a film sequence, or the like. For example, processed data representing a complete hair style may include all of the geometric positions and attributes (e.g., radius, color, etc.) of every single hair in a CGI scene, and such massive data may be discarded once the scene is captured or otherwise used. Film studios may thus re-generate visual hair effects each time they are needed and opt to work without processed hair in many instances. However, storing processed hair data and making it available to artists on demand could reduce or eliminate significant regeneration time, wasted artist time, and wasted computation resources.
Thus, systems and processes for compressing animated hair data are desired.